Hey there,
Welcome to Provocation #16. Realizing that I’ve been dancing around a pretty tight new mission for schools and schooling.
Just as a reminder, all of the posts on this site are now free to all. But a paid subscription will help keep my energy up for this work (6/10 today. God this country is dysfunctioning right now.) AND will support folks in need, as all proceeds from paid memberships will go to my local food pantry this year.
As always, thanks for reading. ~W
So, full disclosure: I’m in one of my curmudgeon-y moods where it feels like very few of the conversations out there about schools and education are rising to anywhere near the level of importance and seriousness this moment is demanding.
Just to note, the United States is in a full-fledged Constitutional crisis as of this morning. The data being released about 2024 ocean temperatures and CO2 levels in the atmosphere are frightening (to put it mildly.) And every new “update” of AI (or is it “A1”?) feels like it’s a step closer to actual human intelligence. (Might already have surpassed our current Secretary of Education…)
And still, in my school-y spaces, we’re mostly talking about new technologies that raise test scores that get kids into college so they can get a degree and make lots of money and consume lots of things to be successful and happy (even as they make things worse.) Or some variation thereof.
But like I alluded to above, there are actually a few items that get over my inordinately high bar.
Like the Green School in Bali building a “Biomimicry for Regenerative Design (BIRD) Lab”.
Like the Festival for Just Futures.
Like FabNewport
As my friend Tim Logan shouted yesterday on LinkedIn,
“The shifts are HAPPENING! Though they're not where you might think. They're not in the technical "solutions" like curriculum, assessment reforms, platforms, pedagogies or particular phrases that come and go in the zeitgeist. They're in the relationships... in the relating!
Which all has me thinking that what our kids need right now — urgently— is for schools to be reimagined as a sites of relational repair.
Not in the sense of a program or pedagogical trend, but as in a slow and necessary reorientation toward what education might still make possible.
We’re Disconnected
Relational repair begins with the recognition (—again—) that much of what has been frayed in our systems — and in our schools — has to do with the ways we’ve become disconnected. Disconnected from one another. Disconnected from purpose. Disconnected from the living world around us. It shows up in classrooms as disengagement, in staff meetings as burnout, in communities as distrust.
It’s not new. But it is deepening.
To imagine education as a site of relational repair is to ask “how we might create the conditions for people — young and old — to re-learn how to be in meaningful relationship?” That includes relationships among students and teachers, yes, but also with ideas, with institutions, with histories, with elders, with futures, and with all the other life on the planet that sustains us. It means recognizing that relationship is not just the backdrop for learning; it is the substance of it.
This approach doesn’t negate the importance of content or skills. It reframes them. It asks: What is this knowledge in service of? How did it come to us? What does it help us notice? Who does it help us care for? How might it change the way we live and learn alongside one another?
If education truly centered relationships, the work would slow down. It would require us to be more present, to ask different questions, and to notice the subtler dynamics at play in a classroom, a community, or a culture. It would also ask more of us as educators — not just to teach well, but to show up differently. To practice humility. To model care. To acknowledge harm and stay open to repair.
This is not simple work, and it’s not quick. But it might be some of the most important work schools can take up in a time of widespread disconnection and systemic instability.
Relationships as Preparation
A focus on repairing and deepening relationships wouldn’t just offer students a better experience of school. It would prepare them for a world in which collaboration, empathy, and adaptability may matter more than ever — not as soft skills, but as survival strategies rooted in mutual thriving.
In a moment when many schools are looking to technology or efficiency or standardization as the way forward, I think we need to ask what those paths might be leading us away from. What are we losing when speed becomes more important than presence? When optimization replaces conversation? When learning is increasingly something done to students, rather than with them?
If we are serious about preparing young people for the world as it is — and as it is becoming — then we need to create learning environments that help them stay connected to themselves, to one another, and to the larger systems they’re part of.
Those are the stories I want to read more of.
So I’m wondering: Are your learning environments deepening relationships — or fracturing them even more?
With gratitude,
~Will
Louis Cozolino ((The Social Neuroscience of Education) states: relationships are humanity's habitat. We are born because of a relationship; we are raised through relationships; and we know, for a fact, that relationships can 'make us or break us'.
I agree with Joel, Will you are on a 'fruitful path'. This conversation is long over due in my opinion.
Relationships in school have been problematic for decades because they have been/are based on an authoritarian model; a built-in power imbalance. It did not work for me - I was 'done' 6 weeks into grade 1 and I knew I was not alone. It would be many more years before I grasped that teachers do not see their learners in this model, especially when the learner is struggling - particularly if the problem is social, emotional. I am wondering if shifting the view from "reconstruction" to "new construction" - a balanced model of relationships - would be helpful?
Relationships are messy; not quantifiable for a mark on a report card and as such, left to languish under the 'heel' of accountability - the focus is on, as you note Joel and Will, performance - time-bound, impersonal and the kids are correct: meaningless work.
The irony of schooling: learning is a natural human pursuit, done in the 'container' of human
relationships. Only in the habitat of human relationships will learning in school find meaning, purpose, joy and fun. Learning with others feeds the soul.
A few older books (but still useful) on this topic:
"The Social Neuroscience of Education" - Cozolino
"The Courage to Teach" - Palmer (relationships with ideas)
"Curriculum in Abundance" - Jardine (nurturing the learners' relationships with ideas)
"Reclaiming Youth at Risk" - Brendtro, Brokenleg, Van Bockern (repairing relationships)
Newer books:
"Emotions, Learning and the Brain" Immordino-Yang
"Reader Come Home" M Wolfe
I I have not read "Burnout from Humans" but I have certainly experienced the title on numerous occasions over what has become my long life. Too much (of anything) is part of life. It is an uncomfortable, disconcerting and at times ugly piece of living in human relationships. And because as a society we do not talk about the hard parts of relationships (and we have so many opportunities in school to do this via a third point reference - e.g. Shakespeare) we don't know what to do to work through stuff like "burnout" - and equally important, recognize the signs of burnout and deal with it before it is too late. But all of this requires knowledge and skills that most children, youth and adults do not have.
In my opinion, without meaningful human relationships in our family, school, and community it is very difficult to have meaningful, joyful relationships with ideas and in particular with nature.
Will, you’re on a fruitful path with the reconstruction of relationships in schools. The energy that comes from interacting with others, our ecosystem, and ideas has been replaced by a digital connection that is either on or off in rapid sequence. To a human, that looks like an emotional void. We don’t benefit from the pathway; only the destinations. If a given destination is disappointing, there is nothing left to reverse that disappointment so we simply go on to the next destinations until we find one that feels good. Some people call that process “scrolling.”
Human interaction through relationships is far more powerful and activates more of our selves because we view words, emotions, and visual impressions through the series of narratives that are somewhat unique to each of us. That can’t be duplicated in the digital world because the experiences are charged with emotion. AI falls short in this realm because it cannot “feel” the experiences, but only chronicle them. The journey only has value as a reference for the destinations.
You’re right. Schools have evolved into repositories for conditioning students to perform better in the mastery of specific and measurable skills and recall of information. The process is time-bound so relationships that take time to nurture don’t fit. A few teachers manage to transcend the closed system and truly help a few kids, but most do not or cannot.
Yesterday, I commented on LI about Ira Socol’s book, Timeless Learning. I wrote, “ Ira, I read your book when it was originally published. It became one of my go-to sources when talking to teachers about changing schools. I remember your critical point about seeing children. That principle makes all the difference, as the "system" is focused on numbers that are a proxy for children. Thanks for sticking with the cause.”
You’ve found the “lever” that will start Frank Moretti’s boulder rolling (Dalton School and Columbia, 1990s). The answer to education reinvention was staring at us the entire time we have struggled with this difficult challenge.